


the broken path

by FreyaS



Series: Stony Bingo [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Depressing, Everything Hurts, Gen, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Post-Break Up, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 08:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17763716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreyaS/pseuds/FreyaS
Summary: Stony Bingo fill S2: It Wasn't Worth It---(Tony Stark, in the wake of overwhelming loss, moving forward.)And yet.It wasn’t worth it.





	the broken path

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Stony 2019 Bingo

The breeze cut through him like bright shards of glass but he hardly felt it, his own heart like a glacier in his chest. He stood here like a broken statue casting shadows across the graves of the worthy. He felt polluted with hate, his very core twisting with sickness and disgust, pitch black like the contents of his soul.

(Tony Stark at Arlington Cemetery visiting the empty graves of Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers. Eye grabbing headlines.)

Grey. The sky was a mask of clouds with as little color as the future that stretched out in front of him. He poured sugar into his coffee, stirred, and looked out at the street ahead of him. There was nothing for him anymore. He was empty, suffocating under every single failure and regret he couldn’t shake.

(Tony Stark, drinking coffee while Captain America ran from his home, his country; _traitor.)_

He wondered if he could bottle the self loathing he felt gushing through his veins, fever bright, his mind screaming that he _always_ ruined everything. No family, no friends. He was alone because of the mistakes he had made. He felt chilled to his bones, his soul a chip of ice that cut through every layer of logic and reason. He didn’t deserve anything. He hoped he would drown and choke and spit out every ounce of wrongness that permeated his senses. But that burden was written into his soul; an inheritance of shame and atonement that he’d started too late.

(Tony Stark, lying as Ross _screamed_ at him. He’d never find the escapees from the Raft.)

Every single day he had failed to look beyond his shallow existence was ten years added to his self imposed sentence. Once - bright as the sunlight on a cold winter day - he had hoped for forgiveness. Once, it had looked and tasted and smelled and felt like the red, white, and blue of his lover. Once, he had come close to righteousness, close to touching the face of God, close enough to feel the burning cleanse of Grace and Kindness. But like Icarus he’d flown too close and burned away, plummeting to the ground.

(Tony Stark, on his own again, arguing minute details of the Accords as he carefully deleted every trace of Steve’s trail.)

He blamed every moment on himself. Too late. Always too late. Too hasty. Too untrustworthy. He hid behind a mask of self righteousness and logic. We _must_ act before they act for us he’d said. I _had_ to do this, he’d lied. Every single word from his mouth was a bluff. He never compromised, he never bent, he had the solutions to every single problem. His hands could coax life from the barren wastelands of a tiny cave in Afghanistan. Persephone, he had fancied himself, the blinding gleam of red and gold armor that he had breathed life into - proof of his ability to create, to work miracles.

(Tony Stark, rebuilding the armor with the wide open cut across its very heart. How cliche; Steve had broken his very _core._ )

Merchant of death. Hades, creating nothing but death and decay every step he walked, was his true legacy. There was no redemption for him and he hated every single lie he’d ever told himself. Choking, clawing at his throat, screaming noiselessly into sterile white pillows in every hotel as he peddled his lies over and over and over again. He sometimes stood at a window. Looked down at every grey landscape and wanted to fall down and break every single bone in his tired body until he was choking on his own blood just so he could actually feel.

(Tony Stark, still promising a future even as he’d destroyed his past.)

For one second he had done the right thing. For a brilliant moment he had made himself happy, breaking away from every obligation until only _he_ mattered. And then. And then. And then. He’d fallen into a pit of his own selfishness, drank a cup of gluttonous indulgence and demanded that a broken man pay for the sins that were weighed against his own soul. Deflect. Reject. Never admit that every single wrong in his life was more than he deserved.

(Tony Stark at the grave of his parents. Begging for forgiveness. If only his mother could see him now. _Murderer_ , blood on his hands.)

Sometimes he could hear it. The soft piano music as his mother played, linking harmony and melody. He pretended he’d sat next to her, leaning against the pastel colors of her clothes and treasuring every scent he could capture. Cinnamon and vanilla and cloves and sunlight on a warm day, a field of everlasting clovers, spun sugar, happiness distilled. In his mind he told his mother he loved her and cherished every moment he could hold her soft hands. His mind was a minefield of lies. In reality, all he had was cold steel, burning hot iron; waking up with the feel of a soldering iron skittering against his broken skin and the notion that _he would never be enough_.

(Tony Stark breaking down the legacy he had begged his father for.)

His greatest failure would always be that he was never enough. Not enough to trust or be trusted. Not enough to be a son, a friend, a lover, a mentor. He acted and planned and created a future to undo the present but he stood alone.

(Tony Stark, abandoned by his lover for someone else. Tony Stark, who broke the only man who had ever told him he was worthy.)

Was it worth it? Was it enough? Did he do right? Was everything he had fought for worth the great open emptiness of the compound? The slow halting steps of his best friend? The ghost of his AI who fervently wished to be somewhere else? Was it worth it?

(Tony Stark spitting blood into a sink in the  abandoned bathroom of the bedroom where his lover used to live. His body rejecting and hating and breaking down.)

He dreamed he was hurtling towards that black hole, the vast emptiness of space and the inescapable knowledge that what was out there was beyond him, suffocating him like black water flooding through his chest. He dreamed he fell and fell and fell. He dreamed he never woke up, that he lay shattered on the broken pavement of a war ravaged city that he didn’t save. It was a good dream.

(Tony Stark with a gun in his hand. Notes written. Empty bottle of whiskey. The coward’s way out. He was never brave enough.)

He left the city. Left the graves of fallen men more worthy than he would ever be. Left every single regret and shame and overflowing ounce of self hate. He tucked himself back into the neat three piece suit he’d paid for with blood money, the legacy of hate and pain and war that provided him with every easy luxury he didn’t deserve. Was it worth it?

(Tony Stark in Washington D.C. fixing nothing and mouthing off, spinning and spinning so no one could trap him.)

He cracked the phone open, his fingers hovering over glossy keys and a tiny, grainy screen with one number.

_It wasn’t worth it._

He left. He fortified. He lied. He didn’t stumble. He didn’t fall.

(Tony Stark, in the wake of overwhelming loss, moving forward.)

And yet.

_It wasn’t worth it._

 


End file.
